Background:Over-the-counter medicines (OTC) are widely available and can be purchased without a prescription. Their availability means that a customer may choose to purchase them without the involvement of a pharmacy/pharmacist. It is important to understand customer OTC purchasing perceptions and behaviour from a pharmacy to better understand the needs and opportunities in this space.Objective:This study aimed to examine customers’ key expectations and what they value when purchasing OTC and how the effect of health status/stress and perceived risks/benefits of purchasing OTCs from a pharmacy may influence their OTC shopping behaviour.Methods:Customers from two metropolitan pharmacies across two different suburbs in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia completed a self-administered questionnaire. Data collection was conducted over a six-week period. The questionnaire examined demographics, current level of health and stress, as well as a range of questions (seven-point Likert-scale) examining perceived benefits and risks, what they value, trust and expect when purchasing OTC.Results:A total of 86 customers from a broad range of demographics were captured in this study. When asked about their current health state, 41% and 23% respectively indicated that they were stressed and tense when they arrived at the pharmacy but many were feeling well (38%). Most customers strongly agreed/agreed that trust in the advice from a pharmacy (96%), trust in the products (73%), and the altruistic approach of a pharmacy (95%) were critical to them. Further, 82% and 78% respectively disagreed that time pressures or costs were concerns, despite many feeling tense and stressed when they came in. When asked where they intend to buy their future OTC, 89% indicated pharmacy instead of a supermarket.Conclusions:High levels of trust, confidence and sense of altruism and care were key factors for customers buying OTC from a pharmacy, regardless of time pressures, costs or existing levels of stress and health.

The objective of this article is to characterize inpatient-related outcomes and measures of efficiency for hospitalized assisted living residents managed by an assisted living-based primary care (ALPC) team. Between 2010 and 2012, 1594 assisted living residents received ALPC. An ALPC team member served as hospital attending physician to 377 assisted living residents at three community hospitals. Several inpatient metrics were compared between the hospitalized ALPC cohort and those reported in the National Hospital Discharge Survey. Hospitalized assisted living residents who received inpatient hospital care by an ALPC team member had lower inpatient mortality, 30-day readmission rates, and shorter length of stay compared to published averages. The authors determined that an ALPC team who follows its patients in the hospital may achieve improved inpatient outcomes.

Homelessness is a significant public health problem. It is well-documented that people experiencing homelessness exhibit more serious illnesses and have poorer health than the general population. The provision of services and interventions by health-care professionals, including pharmacists, may make a simple yet important contribution to improved health outcomes in those experiencing homelessness, but evidence of roles and interventions is limited and variable. In Australia, the Queensland University of Technology Health Clinic connects with the homeless community by taking part in community outreach events. This paper provides details of one such event, as well as the roles, interventions and experiences of pharmacists. Participation and inclusion of pharmacists in a multidisciplinary health-care team approach at homeless outreach events should be supported and encouraged.

This paper applies a local analysis to model and predict hedonic house price in Hanoi, Vietnam. It applies a locally compensated geographically weighted ridge regression to data survey data collected to support the Status Quality Trade Off theory proposed by Phe and Wakely (2000). This has an inherently local flavour is therefore suitable for local statistical approaches such as GWR (Brunsdon et al., 1996). The locally compensated ridge regression accounts for the observed local collinearity. The results provide a spatially nuanced model of status poles associated with areas of desirable housing. Some key areas for future work are suggested.

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